Manage your subscription

Toe snipping is killing frogs

7 August 2004

CONSERVATIONISTS may be unwittingly harming the very amphibians they are trying to help.

It is common practice to cut off a number of the toes of frogs and toads so that they can be identified when recaptured. But a study by Michael McCarthy at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, and Kirsten Parris at the University of Melbourne has found that clipping a second toe, reduces the chance of recapture by 3.5 per cent, while removing an eighth toe cuts the recapture rate by 30 per cent compared with removing seven (Journal of Applied Ecology, vol 41, p 780). …